Wednesday, November 7, 2012

More Regionalish Election Views

Nebraska, in our weather-beaten wisdom, have seen fit to enshrine the right to hunt and fish on our state constitution, right next to such nanny-state protections as the right to free speech and fair trial. I don't have all that much to say about this. I myself am not even a vegetarian; though the diet is common enough among my circle of friends to be as normal as football and beer, which I suppose is enough in itself to make me an extreme outlier in this state. Still I have never heard my veggie elitist friends say a single word about hunting; no fiery denunciation or even light condensation. I would personally describe myself as in favor of 'animal rights' in as much as I oppose displaying dominance over them for its own sake without any valuable benefit to humans. But it's not on my short list of passion triggers by any means. Within this state there is simply no movement within even the tiny community of urban bohemians to restrict hunting or fishing in any way.

Still there is a loud contingent of hunters who badly want to believe that anyone who shows concern for the well being of wildlife must necessarily be an A.L.F. bomb thrower. The entire 'sporting' industry, especially its media, makes itself a great deal of money in pandering towards those who lust to feel hard-done by. (Because being hard done by is the shit!)

For the blowhards, it is nowhere near enough that hunting and fishing are not just allowed but wholly unthreatened. They want the established authorities to pat their heads and tell them what good boys they are, how special and brave they are for being hunters and fishers. It suits their vanity to believe that every man has an instinctive desire to wake up at four AM on a weekend morning so that we can traipse through a frozen cornfield, and that those damn hippies are the only possible reason for why their own hobby isn't universal. This sentiment can easily be tied into larger issues such as the lingering spoiledness of White men; or the desire to believe that White rural culture is the eternal American norm, all obvious proof to the contrary be damned. In the end though it's true that this new law, aggrandized as an amendment though it is, is quite literally hot air, effecting absolutely no one or anything in any way at all. So I suppose..... whatever.

Congrats to our neighbors in Colorado for doing the right thing in legalizing the herb. When I go home to the west for Thanksgiving I intend to make a side trip to the border town of Julesburg and walk the streets openly while I...... walk. It's rather strange isn't it that Colorado, which actually was quite stodgy within living memory, would reject prohibition before ultragreen Oregon. Whatever I suppose. Here's 'Saucerful of Secrets' as a congratulations gift for you kind people.

Deb Fisher, a member of the strutting, rightist, anti-urban ranching class that is grossly overrepresented in our Unicameral, has defeated old salt Bob Kerry for a US Senate seat. Well shit, it happens. Though there is great comfort in the fact that Governor Heineman's racist agenda is bound to be brilliantly stymied by the preordained return of: HIM.